9,000 FEET LEAP

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 26 November 1927, Page 15

9,000 FEET LEAP

• AIRMAN'S MIDNIGHT ESCAPE. BY PARACHUTE IN DARKNESS. Los Angeles, Oat. 27 An epic of air mail transportation his tory was recorded here to-day in the feat of Dick Bowman, Pacific air transport pilot, dropping to safety in his parachute from a storm-tossed ’plane in the blackness of 2 am, and 9,000 feet above the mountains near Castaic, the southern end ot the Ridge Route highway. Bowman, for whom a search was started early to-dav when he was reported missing, took off from Saugus, 45 miles north of here about 2 a.m . with rail for Seattle. The mail had been taken by truck to Saugus because of the heavy fog which blanketed the Los Angeles flying areas. Twenty miles from Saugus jjowman encountered heavy fog rolling toward) him before a strong wind .He spiralled upwards to surmount it. “In the (hick of it all my instruments seemed to net up.” the mail pilot reported, “and I could not see up or down or ahead. The ship started to reel around and went out of control, but 1 stuck by her. I had my safety strap cut ready to leave ami limn it seemed that the ship left me. 1 li'mlcd in the brush after "g die 'plane crush just before